Counting the cost of fitness (From The Argus)

Counting the cost of fitness

1:13pm Sunday 4th April 2010 in Blogs By Graham Bartlett

Oh dear! This is all getting rather serious – and close – now. Having achieved my psychological goal of completing 20 miles I returned to find my Brighton Marathon entrants pack waiting for me. One thing I was curious about; am I the only one competing who has been issued with a fluorescent vest and a torch? What have they heard about my athletic prowess?

Do you know when I started this running lark in May I thought, well this will be a nice cheap way of keeping fit! If you haven’t started then don’t believe a word of it. I have just worked out that it has cost me the price of:

• Running Shirt (chafe free)
• Running leggings (also chafe free)
• Two pairs of trainers
• A satellite tracking device (to see how far I have run, not to help helicopter crews find me!)
• Blister free socks (I didn’t know socks got blisters)
• Two physio appointments
• Two sports massage appointments
• Enough isotonic drinks to float a small navy
• Energy gels (they were new on me)
• Half of Boots's supply of pain relieving creams
• Entry fee to half marathon
• Entry fee to full marathon.

So what started out as a pleasant run in the country in a pair of old trackies and a tee-shirt has ended up with me single handedly getting the country out of recession!

Anyway, two weeks to go and into that pleasant wind down period. Luckily the old IT band seems to be holding out so it's now just a case of some short(er) distance runs and plenty of wholesome food (which DOES include unlimited Easter eggs by the way!).